ITB World Travel Trends Report forecasts rising figures for world tourism – Germany remains world champion for outbound trips – Latest surveys by the IPK World Travel Monitor® published exclusively by ITB Berlin

Worldwide economic factors along with the refugee crisis in Europe are impacting very differently on the global tourism industry. The overall trend remains satisfying, however, and 2015 has been another good year for world tourism. That is one of the results of IPK's 23rd World Travel Monitor® Forum in Pisa, Italy (October 26 – 28), presented by Rolf Freitag, President of tourism consultancy IPK International.

Some 6.75 billion domestic trips and 1.2 billion international arrivals are expected by the end of this year, he said. The number of outbound trips increased by 4.5 percent in the first eight months of 2015, today's results of the IPK trend survey showed. Growth drivers were short trips up to a maximum of seven nights. In contrast, the market share of longer trips declined further.

Luxury class hotels and 'para-hotel' accommodation continued to increase their market shares, while other hotel categories lost worldwide market shares. Germany remained the 'world travel champion' as the worldwide number one outbound market for international tourism, followed by the USA and the UK. Excluding all trips to Hong Kong and Macau, China lies in fourth place in the ranking. Among city trip destinations, Hong Kong was again in first place ahead of Paris and London.

The outlook for world travel in 2016 is also very positive. In October 2015, as part of its World Travel Monitor, IPK International questioned respondents in the most important markets for outbound travel about their travel planning for 2016. The result is the World Travel Confidence Index, which already predicted future market trends very reliably in recent years. For 2016, IPK is predicting international tourism growth of 4.3 percent. The strongest growth can be expected from Asia (+6.1 percent) and North America (+5.1 percent in total, but +5.9 percent from the USA). Europeans will also contribute to the rise in global tourism with a 2.8 percent increase in outbound trips. The travel desire of Latin Americans is relatively subdued, and they plan only 1.9 percent more trips than in 2015.

At the annual World Travel Monitor® Forum in Pisa, initiated at the invitation of consultancy IPK International and supported by ITB Berlin, more than 50 tourism experts and academics from around the world present the latest figures and current trends in international tourism. Additional results of IPK International's trend surveys from January to August 2015 together with the estimates of 50 tourism experts from more than 20 countries and the key data from the World Travel Monitor® are published exclusively by ITB Berlin. The detailed results will appear at the beginning of December in the ITB World Travel Trends Report under www.itb-berlin.com.

The World Travel Monitor® final results for the year, including the latest outlook for 2016, will be presented at the ITB Convention by Rolf Freitag, President of IPK International. The World Travel Monitor® is based on representative interviews with more than 500,000 people a year in more than 60 travel markets worldwide, and has been regularly conducted for more than 20 years. It is recognised as the largest continuous study into global travel patterns.